As the lane climbed towards the open moor it became narrower and steeper. The high Devon banks on either side closed in, thick with bracken and dripping greenery. Helen drove slowly, but in places the way ahead became so confined that she had to slow the car to walking pace to avoid scraping it on the sharp rocks, obscured by ferns and foliage.
It seemed to Helen that this tiny lane, with its tortured twists and turns as it laboured up the foothills towards Dartmoor, somehow reflected her own mood, even more so as the dark clouds ahead closed in on her and she drew closer to Black Moor Hall.
At last she entered a stretch of dense woodland, where a moorland stream rushed downhill in a gully beside the road, and the entrance to the house came into view. Black wrought-iron gates rusting with age stood between tall, granite pillars. She pulled off the lane, stopped the car on the little bridge that crossed the stream and got out to open the gates. As she did so, she glanced down at her phone lying on the passenger seat. A text was flashing on the screen.
Sorry, going to be a bit late. Something’s come up. See you later. Laura.
Helen sighed, inching the car through the gates. Predictable; typical even. But it didn’t matter really; it would give her a chance to wander around the place alone and get her thoughts together. She needed time to reflect.
She drove along the rough track, through the spinney of evergreens, and as she rounded the final bend, the old house hove into view. It was a grey, overcast day, with mists rolling in from the high moor. The house looked even more forbidding than usual with its sombre granite gables and square bay windows either side of the imposing entrance. Helen pulled the car up on the circular drive and, suppressing a shudder, fumbled in her handbag for the keys.
As she paused on the threshold, she realised that she couldn’t remember a time in recent years when she’d been inside the house alone. As she closed the heavy front door behind her and ventured through the porch into the vast entrance hall, she felt the chill wrap itself around her.
She paused in the galleried hallway, half-expecting her mother’s voice to ring out from the kitchen.
‘You’re late again, Helen… Well, don’t just stand there, come on in and peel the potatoes. Good God! What on earth are you wearing?’
But the house was still and silent – as it had never been before. She wandered through into the dining room, with its dark marble fireplace and huge bay window overlooking the rolling moor, vast and open, rising gently upwards to the crags of Black Tor in the distance. She’d half-expected to see her mother sitting in the corner by the window, pedalling away furiously on an old-fashioned treadle sewing machine, running up curtains, clothes, or patchwork quilts, or kneeling before the fire in her gardening trousers, working the wooden bellows to get the flames going. But the room was as still as the grave, ornaments and knick-knacks gone, the bookcases emptied of their books, which waited in tea chests to be taken to the second-hand bookshop in Ashburton.
Sighing, Helen walked over to the fireplace and peered at the framed photographs that still stood on the mantelpiece. She and Laura must have somehow forgotten to pack them away when they had cleared this room yesterday. In pride of place in the middle was the one of her mother and father at their wedding, outside that whitewashed church in Darjeeling, the hill-station in India where they had first met. Daisy and Arthur’s wedding, October 1945, the inscription underneath the photograph read. Her father, short and balding, a good fifteen years older than her mother, was smiling from ear to ear, but her mother looked wistful and a little surprised, in a white lacy dress and veil, her hair swept back from her face. Beside it was the one of Daisy collecting her medical degree in 1955, holding up her certificate, a triumphant look on her face. Next to that stood the picture of Laura and Helen, probably aged thirteen and three respectively, standing together on the front step of the house in London in white dresses, then there was Laura in cap and gown receiving her degree; Laura and Paul getting married, and several others of their two children.
There were no further pictures of herself, she noted with a wry smile, because she had neither got married nor finished her degree. Looking at the photos on the mantelpiece now, she realised that the display was a snapshot of all the things her mother was proud of.
She ran a finger through the dust on the dining room table and checked the label tied to its leg. Scorpio Antiques, High Street, Totnes was written there in her own handwriting. The shop belonged to her friend, Jago, and it was where she’d worked for several years.
She wandered across the hall and into the living room, with its bay window and Daisy’s reclining armchair. She pictured her mother slumped in it in the weeks before her stroke, watching daytime television, a sure sign that something was very wrong. Normally Daisy would have scoffed at the idea – she’d been so dynamic, so full of energy.
Helen walked through to the kitchen where she’d found her mother sprawled on the floor in front of the Aga a month ago. It was fate that had brought Helen to the house that day. She’d been on the dual carriageway, coming back from a shopping trip in Exeter, when she’d seen the turn-off to Black Moor Hall and taken it on a whim.
Now, Helen put the kettle on the hob and peered out of the window. It looked out over the back lawn, to the garden hedge and over the wild, neglected farmland beyond. Daisy had forbidden Helen to venture in that direction as she was growing up. A couple of fields away beyond an overgrown wood, in a hollow in the hills, stood a derelict farmhouse, surrounded by tumbledown barns. The buildings were smothered in ivy. Ferns and buddleia sprouted from the caved-in roofs.
‘It’s dangerous down there,’ Daisy had said when Helen had asked about what was over the hedge. ‘It’s out of bounds. There’s plenty of space to explore on the other side of the house. The whole moor, in fact. You’ve absolutely no reason to go onto that land.’
Helen had obeyed her for years, but on many occasions when looking out of her bedroom window, she had been surprised to see Daisy herself wandering through the tall grass of the forbidden field, heading in the direction of the old farmhouse. She would return later, walking slowly, her head bowed, lost in thought. Helen had not dared to ask her mother about it, or even mention that she’d seen her. Daisy wasn’t that sort of mother. But she recalled being mystified, as well as feeling hurt at being excluded on seeing her mother wandering in that field alone.
She’d only ventured there once in her life, through the dense wood, to stare down at the old farm nestled in the valley. She’d done it as an act of rebellion against her mother. She’d trespassed on forbidden ground. An act that had had lasting repercussions for their relationship.
She cast her eye around the kitchen to check that she and Laura hadn’t missed anything yesterday. Cardboard boxes were stacked in the middle of the room, containing all Daisy’s cooking equipment and china. It wasn’t likely they would have – the photographs on the mantelpiece were a slip-up, but otherwise Laura had been ruthless.
‘What about this?’ Helen had mused, holding a silk print of a Sikh warrior up to show her sister. ‘Don’t you think we should keep them? Mum must have had them since she was in India. She might be upset if we get rid of them.’
Laura had given her that look – the one with the raised eyebrow – that said it all. She didn’t even need to speak, and Helen had automatically taken the prints off the wall and stowed them away in a tea chest, along with all the other memorabilia.
‘Look at this lovely cushion,’ she’d said as they were clearing the sitting room. ‘Don’t you remember Mum doing this tapestry herself? She worked on it, night after night. It took her ages.’
‘Yes, I do remember. But, sadly, we can’t keep everything. There’s just too much. It’s such a shame, I know.’
It had been awkward between Helen and Laura at first. They’d hardly spoken for years. It wasn’t a rift exactly, but they had always been so different. Laura, with her ambition, her fast-paced legal career, her big house in a fashionable suburb of Exeter, and now her other roles. She was a mother to two equally successful thirty-somethings, and consort to her husband Paul, who’d recently given up his job in the City to become an MP. Helen thought of her own life now. She had no real career, other than helping Jago in his antiques business, she had no qualifications and no children. She’d always found life so difficult. She supposed life in Totnes was pleasant enough though. She had friends, she enjoyed her yoga lessons once a week, meetings with the Green Action Group and dabbling in her art. But it had been so hard to find her place in the world. It felt, now, as if she hadn’t got much to look back on. Just a series of broken relationships and missed opportunities. She bit her thumbnail absently as she thought about it.
She wandered upstairs and stood in the doorway of her childhood bedroom. Weak winter sunlight streamed in through the window. This was where she’d slept since they’d moved to the house when she was nine, until she left, aged eighteen. The white walls were bare, with paler patches where her pictures had been taken down. She sat down on her old brass bed and a host of memories came flooding back. She could almost feel multiple versions of herself lying right there on the bed beside her. So clear were the memories that she had a sensation of vertigo, as if she was looking down from a great height as the years unravelled beneath her. Here she was, lying on the bed as an anguished nine-year-old, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling, wondering why on earth her mother had insisted on tearing her away from her school and her home in London, from everything she’d ever known, and bringing her to live here in the middle of nowhere.
The sound of a car engine and the scrunch of tyres on the drive broke into her memories. She crossed the landing to the front bedroom and peered out of the window. There was Laura’s BMW parking up, sleek and new, beside her own small and battered Renault. The door opened and out got Laura, mobile phone clamped to her ear, dressed in designer boots and jeans and a casual sweater, her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. Helen watched her sister cross the front drive and mount the steps of the house. A pang of envy went through her.
Helen heard Laura’s voice in the hall as she finished her conversation. She went to the top of the stairs.
‘Oh, there you are,’ said Laura, looking up. ‘Sorry about that. Some work thing. A client needed some urgent advice on a deal.’
‘I thought you’d retired,’ Helen replied.
‘I have… well, semi anyway,’ Laura said, coming up the stairs. ‘I’m just a consultant now. But this client asked specifically for me to take care of this deal. I really couldn’t say no. He brings in a lot of income for the firm.’
Laura was at the top of the stairs now and, with a waft of Chanel No 5, gave Helen a peremptory peck on the cheek.
‘All set, then? Have you started yet?’ she asked breezily.
‘Of course not. I wasn’t going to start without you. It’s Mum’s bedroom, after all. I wouldn’t want to do that on my own.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Well, it’s so personal. Lots of memories, that sort of thing.’
Laura gave her a sympathetic glance and, picking up a couple of empty cardboard boxes, strode in front of her and into their mother’s bedroom. Helen followed, a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t been in there since Daisy went into the care home, weeks ago. Mrs Starr, the cleaning lady, would have been in to strip the bed and clean the room, but it still felt odd venturing into Daisy’s personal space. This was somewhere else that had been out of bounds when she’d been young.
‘Come on, then. Let’s start with the dressing table, shall we?’ said Laura.
They systematically went through Daisy’s hairbrushes, her perfume bottles, her scarves and her jewellery. Then they emptied her chests of drawers and wardrobe of clothes.
‘She did have an awful lot of old rubbish,’ said Laura, holding up an Aran sweater with holes in the sleeves.
‘She knitted that herself, I think. She used to wear it for gardening,’ Helen said, picturing Daisy pruning the roses around the drive, weeding the flowerbeds in all weathers, pushing the lawnmower vigorously across the lawn.
‘Well, let’s face it,’ said Laura briskly, ‘no one else is going to want it, are they? Full of holes like that. And Mum isn’t going to need it any more, is she? When I spoke to the doctors at the care home they gave me the impression she wasn’t doing very well. I know you don’t want to believe it, Helen, but she really won’t be coming back here. Another one for the clothes bank.’ She screwed the sweater up and dropped it into a bin bag. Helen winced, seeing another precious item consigned like this. How different they were. How could Laura be so practical about all this, when everything they associated with their mother was being discarded for ever?
The morning wore on and after a couple of hours they had finished clearing the room. Bookshelves, drawers, and the wardrobe were all emptied and dusted down, the pictures stacked in a pile.
‘What about the wardrobe?’ asked Laura, staring at the great mahogany monstrosity that occupied one wall. ‘Is Jago taking that too?’
‘I think so. Yes. Mum loved it so much, didn’t she?’
‘It’s hard to see why. God knows how he’s going to transport that.’
‘I think it comes apart. The top separates from the bottom bit,’ said Helen, going over to the wardrobe and examining the join where the two halves met. ‘Look.’ She pushed the top part with her shoulder and edged it forward to demonstrate. As she moved it forward from the wall, something dropped down the back from the top of the wardrobe.
‘What was that?’ asked Laura.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Shall we try to push it forward and see?’
They both put their shoulders to the wardrobe and, with some effort, nudged it a few inches from the wall.
‘It’s just an old hat, look,’ said Helen, picking up a grey felt hat, thick with dust and cobwebs. But as she did so, she noticed something protruding from the wall behind the wardrobe. She looked more closely: it appeared to be some wooden beading, perhaps a door frame.
‘What’s this?’
Laura came over and peered behind the wardrobe.
‘I’ve no idea. Why don’t we move the wardrobe aside a bit more?’
Again, they put their shoulders to the wardrobe and, with a lot of scraping and creaking, managed to move it a couple of feet further.
It was a cupboard, built into the wall. It had a white painted door and an old-fashioned metal fastener shaped like a cross. Helen was staring at the cupboard, wondering what was inside.
‘Go on. Open it then,’ said Laura.
Helen turned the metal cross and pulled the door. It was stiff, but after a few tugs it opened. She peered inside. The space contained several built-in wooden shelves. Only one of these had anything on it: an old canvas bag with scuffed leather straps. Helen lifted it out carefully. She lifted the flap and looked inside. There were two dusty envelopes nestling in the folds.
Helen looked at Laura, stunned. ‘There are some old letters in here.’
‘Well, take them out then. What are you waiting for?’
‘They’re probably Mum’s. She might not want us to see them.’
‘Oh, come on, Helen. I’m sure Mum won’t mind. We’ve got to pack up the house, after all. She knows we’re putting it on the market.’
‘If you’re sure…’ Helen said. Laura nodded impatiently. ‘Of course. Let’s see what they say.’
Helen drew the letters out of the bag with some reverence. There was a feeling of discomfort in her stomach. If she’d been alone, she would probably have left the letters in the bag and shut the cupboard again. But Laura was hovering over her, eyes expectant, her body taut with impatience.
‘Well, what are they? Open one up.’
The first letter on the pile had a London postmark, was dated July 1940 and bore a Plymouth address she didn’t recognise.
Miss Daisy Banks,
10, St James Road,
Plympton,
Plymouth,
Devon.
‘Who is Daisy Banks?’ Laura asked the question that was hovering on Helen’s own lips. She shook her head, mystified.
‘I’ve no idea. Mum’s maiden name was Dawson. She showed me her passport once.’ She remembered her mother proudly showing her a battered passport dated sometime in 1945, a picture of a young Daisy looking out from its pages.
‘And Plymouth? Did Mum ever live in Plymouth?’
Helen thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t remember her mentioning having spent time in Devon during the war.’
‘No. She’s never really talked about the war to me. I just got the impression that she stayed at home in London throughout,’ Laura said.
‘Do you remember when she used to talk about India?’ Helen asked, recalling the stories herself. ‘How she went out there once her parents had died, how she met Dad out there after the war. Perhaps it’s a different Daisy?’
‘I hardly think so, Helen. Are both the letters addressed to Daisy Banks?’
Helen looked at the envelopes. Underneath them were some old photographs.
The first was of two girls, standing side by side outside a terraced house. One looked to be in her early teens, the other a few years younger. The older one bore more than a passing resemblance to their mother.
‘Who’s the other girl?’ asked Helen. Laura shrugged, examining the next photograph. ‘A friend perhaps? Look at this one!’
It was of a family group, a man and a woman and the two girls from the first photograph. They were sitting on a wall at the seaside, their hair blown by the wind. The younger girl was sitting on the woman’s lap. The older one was seated next to the man, holding his hand. On the back was written: Margate, summer 1937.
The third photograph was of a different girl altogether. She looked older. Seventeen or eighteen perhaps. She was very plump and her pudgy face was serious, unsmiling, her eyes dull. She was holding a tiny baby, swaddled in a shawl.
‘Who do you think that is?’ Helen asked Laura, showing her the photo.
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Laura.
There was also a picture postcard from the seaside. A sandy beach with people in bathing costumes sunning themselves in deckchairs or playing ball games. Written on the other side was:
To my darling Daisy. Be good. I’ll be thinking of you all the time. Until we meet again, Love Mother.
The last photograph was of a fresh-faced young man Helen didn’t recognise. He was dressed in naval uniform, with three stripes on his sailor’s collar; his face was slim and fine-boned and from under his peaked cap protruded a mop of dark hair. He was staring out at the camera with a look of defiance. Helen peered closely; on the cap were the letters ‘HMS’ and some further letters, which she presumed were the name of his ship, but they were too dark to read. Under the photograph were printed the words, Ordinary Seaman J. Smith. 1942. She stared at them, puzzled. She’d never heard her mother speak of a J. Smith. She glanced at Laura, who shrugged.
‘Why don’t you open one of the letters?’
Helen eased a letter out of the envelope and unfolded it slowly. The paper was brittle and yellow with age and the words were written in faded blue ink in spidery handwriting. She began to read out loud.
‘My Dearest Daisy and Peggy,’ it began.
‘Peggy?’ Helen stopped reading and stared at Laura. ‘Whoever’s Peggy?’
Laura shrugged. ‘Absolutely no idea. Go on. Carry on reading.’
‘I’m so sorry your train journey got off to such a bad start, but I hope you have settled in now and that life isn’t too bad with Mr and Mrs Brown. I expect you’ve started school by now and that might feel strange, so far from home and different from what you’re used to. Please don’t worry about me. They’re taking good care of me, here in hospital. I broke my leg in the fall, and got knocked out, as you know, but I’m getting a bit better every day. I’ll be thinking of you and hoping you will be on your best behaviour and keeping your chins up. Daisy, I know I can trust you to look after your sister. It is such a comfort to me that you’ve been able to go together—’
Helen stopped reading.
‘Laura, this must be a different Daisy. Mum was an only child. This letter can’t have been written to her, can it?’
Laura was staring at the letter, her face pale with shock.
Plymouth, July 1940
I’ll never forget that night when everything changed. It was a few weeks after we’d been evacuated to Plympton, to stay with Mr and Mrs Brown. The weather was very close that night and the little bedroom I shared with Peggy was stifling. I was finding it hard to get off to sleep, as I had for weeks now. Other things were keeping me awake apart from the heat; I felt so lost in this city where I didn’t belong, sleeping in a house with complete strangers. I slid out of bed to open the window wider. As I lifted the sash, I saw the first glimmerings of daylight over the roofs opposite and I was sure I could hear a rumble in the distance. Was it thunder? Perhaps a summer storm? And then a chill went through me. I stuck my head out of the window to l. . .
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